The deadline for the Adult Survivors Act has passed. What's next?

the day after the last Thanksgiving. The law was modeled after the Teen Victims Act, which was tabled before the Me Too movement, but which overcame strong opposition from insurance companies and the Catholic Church, and ultimately passed with huge majorities in the Democratically controlled legislature in 2019. But for both laws, the window for criminal prosecution was impossible for constitutional reasons.

The one-year window has spawned lawsuits against some high-profile personalities.

such as Donald Trump, who is already in court on defamation charges by E. Jean Carroll after she claimed he raped her and then sued over the act itself.''Jeffrey Epstein could not be the subject of a lawsuit because he died, but his estate became the subject of a lawsuit, and Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan agreed to multimillion-dollar settlements today after suing over the act. Brittany Commisso, who filed a criminal complaint against her former boss, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, that did not result in charges despite prosecutors calling her "constructive and believable," has filed a lawsuit to see it through civil court.

But days before the November deadline, an avalanche of lawsuits followed.

which showed that there were still fresh (alleged) horrors to learn about: Cassie Ventura's disgusting account of abuse at the hands of Sean Combs,''settled out of court in one day; allegations by a woman that Erek Adams, the mayor of New York City, sexually assaulted her in 1993. In 2022, State Senator Kevin Parker voted in favor of the Adult Survivors Act. In November, a woman filed a lawsuit against Parker under that law, claiming he raped her after a 2004 relief trip to Haiti. (They all deny the allegations.) That resulted in about 3,000 lawsuits. In a conversation slightly edited for clarity, State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents parts of western Manhattan, talks about what struck him about the year of retrospectivity and the chances of extending it.

What did it take to pass the Adult Survivors Act? "

There was some opinion before the passage of the''potentially alerts authorities and others who may take steps to consider whether a person is still in contact with potential victims.

How much influence did the Me Too movement have on these two laws?

I believe that public awareness of sexual assault was the impetus for their advancement in the legislature.

In 2019, before the passage of the Adult Survivors Act, you said that, unlike the Child Victims Act, people are more likely to file lawsuits against specific perpetrators rather than against institutions like the Catholic Church or the Girl Scout Organization. And, of course, there are these very famous people who are named in these lawsuits. But it's really striking that about one in six of the lawsuits are related''s Riker.

I did not anticipate the filing of hundreds of lawsuits against the Department of Corrections. I did not anticipate that. Nor did I envision the exclusion of Robert Hadden and other physicians who violated the trust of a multitude of their patients. So the institutional context, at least in the medical field and in our corrections system, surprised me. I was amazed by these findings.

The public sometimes has difficulty understanding civil lawsuits seeking material compensation

or they see it cynically. What kind of justice do you think is achieved by filing such lawsuits? What does it do for the victim or survivor to ask for money?

This is an important point. And it doesn't speak to culpability, it speaks to''legal responsibility. But to a survivor, these things can mean the same thing in the sense that their story is heard in court with a judge and jury, and will be validated by their suffering. Which, as I understand it, the most significant breakthrough for many of these survivors is that for the first time they've been heard on this issue. And that's obviously a sad experience for them and why it takes a long time for victims to realize the reality of what happened to them. Another reason why we might be interested in making these windows permanent or extending their timeframes.

It's interesting that there are some people who don't want to prosecute their abusers.

Possible.

This is a very good point, as I see many of the lawsuits against the institutions you mentioned have many plaintiffs.

So obviously that makes it more valuable to''law firms. And it seems that only a few firms specialize in filing such lawsuits.

This is a real industry. I applaud it. But I think it points to the need for more government support for civil legal services, for example, but at the moment there isn't that funding for bringing claims of this kind.

What else has surprised you? What else has surprised you.

I was struck by the popularity of some of those named in the lawsuits. Colleagues, current and former, at Albany. 45th President of the United States, among others. The frenzy of lawsuits at the end of the day, I think, speaks to the fact that some people didn't file in time. It was hard to get the information out. Sure, the Diddy case got people's attention on social media, but this''Was a late lawsuit. And I do wonder if those who should have been made aware of this opportunity heard in time.

Victims' rights advocates are calling for an extension of the window. Do you support this?

If not a permanent window, then another temporary window. You have to ask the question, who benefits from the timing of the lawsuits? And we see that the courts have been able to scrutinize the evidence. To my knowledge, there have been no confirmed frivolous cases. And that would also apply to child victims. Maryland has instituted window anchoring. Other jurisdictions are considering this approach. I think it has caused a lot of powerful people and institutions to look to the future. I think some breathed a sigh of relief on November 25 when they were not targeted